Carroll’s tinkering has Seahawks struggling

Seattle Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll said after Sunday’s loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers that he expected his offense to struggle early on.

That still isn’t likely to sooth the panic in the Emerald City.

Just 20 games into his Seattle coaching career, Carroll has struggled to find consistency since returning to the pro level. While he was certainly able to handle the continuing roster turnover that is part of the college game, the former USC sideline general is quickly rediscovering it is tougher to mesh new parts together over a short time in the NFL.

Some new faces were expected when Carroll took over as Seattle’s coach prior to last season. After all, if he was going to turn the franchise around, he had to do it with his players. But after a staggering 284 roster transactions a season ago, the Seahawks opened Week 1 with another 24 players who are in their first season with the club. Mix in a shortened offseason of workouts and camps due to the lockout, and it is no surprise that Seattle has managed just 383 net yards of offense through two games.

“Yes,” Carroll said after Sunday’s 24-0 loss when asked if he foresaw the early struggles on offense. “There’s a lot of contributing factors and concerns.

“Knowing how new we were and how few opportunities we had to bring [the new players] along, it’s going to take a little while. It’s unfortunate and it’s very difficult to have to live through it, but we know what’s going to happen at the other end and we’re going to stay the course.”

That means sticking with Tarvaris Jackson under center for at least another week. Like he may have to do all season, Carroll was questioned on if he was considering a switch under center. He first said he would have to look at the film, but later committed to Jackson for next week’s home opener against the Arizona Cardinals.

Carroll was quick to deflect the fire from Jackson, spreading the blame for Sunday’s debacle to the whole team — including himself — while sounding more like a man protecting a bunch of college kids than a collection of professional athletes.

“I have to help more,” he said. “I know I told the players in the locker room I have to help more, I have to find better ways to move the football and to make good plays like [on] third down. [Sunday] we had a hard time.”